The Science of Sleep
by WeaponFanfic
Summary: The dreams of some Lyoko warriors aren't as peaceful as one would think. Episode 5 of The Reset Arc.
1. Red Hornet

**The Science of Sleep**

_The dreams of some Lyoko warriors aren't as peaceful as one would think. Episode 5 of The Reset Arc._

Disclaimer: Code Lyoko was created by Tania Palumbo and Thomas Romain. It was produced by Antefilms and then by MoonScoop. It is aired in France by France 3 and in America by Cartoon Network. The author is neither employed by or affiliated with any of the above companies or entities. All characters, locales, and other non-original entities are property of the parties mentioned above. All rights reserved.

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Ulrich Stern ran towards the rock formation, diving past it before rolling to the side and standing up again with his back leaning against the naturally made wall. He leaned out a bit to take a peek before quickly retracting is head, narrowly avoiding a laser blast to the face. As he caught his breath and thanked his lucky stars that he didn't become devirtualized, he began to assess the situation before him.

Earlier ago, he and his friends were sent to the desert sector of Lyoko to deactivate a tower. XANA had used this tower to disable all communications in the area. Television sets produced static snow on screen. Radios broadcast white noise while phones had no signal whatsoever. The group had arrived and were en route to the activated tower when a trio of creepers appeared. Unlike past incarnations, however, these creepers were upgraded with stronger lasers and a faster rate of fire. Overwhelmed, the group split up, each hiding behind a different rock formation that surrounded the creatures.

Ulrich leaned out once more to get a better look at the enemy. He saw that the creatures had stood with their backs against each other, rotating in a clockwise direction and constantly firing off laser blasts in the hopes that they would be able to hit someone. The young samurai leaned on the rock formation once more and cupped his hand over his ear. "Got any ideas on how we can get out of this mess?" he asked.

Jeremie Belpois analyzed his monitor very carefully. As the group's only member not to set foot on Lyoko on a constant basis, he was charged with the task of monitoring everything in the virtual world. From the creatures to the terrain to the fighters, he had to know it all. He tapped on the keys furiously, bringing up window after window of statistics, hoping to find an exploit that would get the group out of trouble. He grit his teeth as he looked over the numbers shown on the screen. "The good news," he said, "is that the creepers still have the same weak spot as before, despite the upgrades."

"Great," Yumi Ishiyama said sarcastically with her back against another stone wall. "And the bad news is..."

"The bad news is that I don't have any idea how you can stop them with their increased rate of fire," he stated.

"You know, for a genius, you sure don't know a whole lot," Odd Della Robbia said. He immediately clutched his tail as he saw a laser blast come dangerously close to it.

Aelita Schaeffer looked up towards the sky. "Anyone else out there have a plan?" she asked.

"We surrender?" Odd quipped.

Yumi shook her head in disgust. "Anyone else have a _real_ plan?"

"Give me a second," Ulrich answered as he pulled out a katana and let the broad side of the weapon face him. He let a small portion of the sword be exposed beyond his cover spot and began using it as a mirror. He saw the creepers still in the center, constantly on patrol with their guns at the ready. He also saw the other rock formations that Aelita and Odd hid behind. He noticed that they were fairly tall and still sturdy. Taking all of this into account, a plan began to formulate in his head. "Aelita, Odd, can you guys get to the tops of those rocks you're hiding behind?" he asked as he cupped his ears once more.

Aelita looked up and saw just how high the rock formation went. While the wings Jeremie programmed for her weren't exactly strong enough to take her to the top in one leap, she calculated that they would still give her some type of advantage in climbing. "I think I can make it and I'm pretty sure Odd can, too," she replied. "What do you have in mind?"

"A distraction," he said. "I need you and Odd to lay down some blind fire and distract our three friends over there. That should give me and Yumi enough time to get in close enough for the killing blows."

"Did you get all that, Odd?" she asked as she activated her wings, preparing for her short flight.

Odd flexed his fingers. "No problem, princess," he said as he dug deep into the rock formation and began his ascent.

Yumi glanced over at Ulrich who was still looking at the reflection on his sword, observing the creepers as the others made the climb. "Why are you sending them so high up there?" she inquired.

Ulrich answered without turning his head. "The creepers might be a little more intelligent this time around and not take the bait so easily," he said. "If that happens, making them aim higher than usual before they notice us might give us a little more time to strike before being blown away."

Yumi nodded. "Makes sense to me."

The young samurai saw that both of his colleagues made it to their destinations. "Everyone ready?" he asked.

"Ready," the other three said simultaneously.

Ulrich began the countdown. "3..."

"2..." Odd continued as he adjusted his wrists.

"1..." Aelita whispered as she began to charge up an energy ball in one hand.

Yumi took a peek from behind her cover spot and saw a volley or laser arrows and energy balls fly at the creepers from opposite sides. Two of the creatures immediately began to open fire on each of the sources of the disturbances. While the blasts came dangerously close to both Odd and Aelita, none of them had gotten injured. She continued to observe the situation and noticed that the third creeper had not done anything since the attack had begun. "I don't think it's working," she relayed to Ulrich.

"Wait for it," he replied as he continued his observations via the reflection from his sword. Just then, he noticed that the two creepers that were attacking Odd and Aelita had stopped firing. For a moment he was wondering whether Yumi was right about this. His fears were subsided when he noticed that the final creeper had finally turned around and turned each of his arms to the directions the blind fire was coming from. His fears returned, however, when he and Yumi noticed that the creepers had chosen to lower their aim and attack the rock formations instead, hoping that they would crumble and take the attackers out with it.

"We have to move!" she exclaimed as Ulrich nodded in agreement. Both of the warriors left their hiding spots and charged towards the creepers, hoping to take them out from behind. Yumi took out both of her fans and threw them both at the creeper aiming for Aelita. The razor sharp edges of the fans sliced through the top of creature, cutting through the eye and causing it to collapse and shatter into millions of lines of code.

Ulrich, meanwhile, unsheathed his katanas and activated his super sprint maneuver. He sped towards the creeper in the middle and leaped high into the air, landing on the monster's back. Before the creature could react, the warrior raced to the top and plunged both of his blades into the creeper's eye, destroying it and propelling him in a freefall towards the ground. Before any celebrating could be done, however, the final creeper that was aiming for Odd swung his left arm, knocking Ulrich back several feet.

Yumi looked back briefly and saw that he was alright. Catching her fans as they returned to her, she growled and lunged forward, throwing both of her fans at the monster. Instead of simply standing there and waiting for the weapons to make contact, however, the creeper swatted away both fans with one arm and began firing at Yumi with the other. The kunoichi stopped in her tracks and began flipping from side to side, trying to dodge the laser blasts to the best of her ability. She had managed to dodge every shot thrown at her when the creeper eventually stopped firing to cool itself down. Noticing her chance, Yumi ran towards her fallen weapons and tried to grab them in time to perform another attack. As she retrieved her last fan, she turned around and saw that the creeper had not only gotten its guns to cool down, it had already taken aim at Yumi and prepared to fire another volley of shots. Just when she thought she was done for, she saw the creeper shatter into millions of lines of code. When the binary digits had finally faded away, she had seen both Odd and Aelita emerge from the creature's resting place. Odd blew the smoke away from his wrists while Aelita discharged the last bit of energy from her fists.

"Are you OK?" Aelita asked as she approached Yumi.

Yumi nodded and smiled, grateful to still be in one piece. Meanwhile, Odd grabbed Ulrich's arm and helped him get back up. Like Yumi, he was shaken but still functional. Once she confirmed that everyone was fine, Aelita ran towards the tower and leaped inside to begin the deactivation process.

"And so ends another adventure on the virtual world of Lyoko," Odd said triumphantly as he and his friends looked at the tower. "So, who's hungry?"

"Odd, it's kinda late," Yumi argued.

The purple cat nodded. "That's why I'm starving. Anyone want to stop somewhere before we head back home?"

"I could go for some..." Ulrich's speech stopped suddenly. Yumi and Odd turned to him and saw that a long stinger was protruding from his mouth. To their surprise, the stinger was attached to a red hornet that was clasped to the back of the warrior's head. As Ulrich began to disintegrate, the red hornet exploded, knocking Odd and Yumi away while accelerating Ulrich's devirtualization process.

Yumi cupped her ear just as Odd shook his head, trying to regain his bearings. "Thanks for the warning, Jeremie," she said sarcastically.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The red hornet," she responded. "The one that just took out Ulrich before it exploded. You did catch that on the radar, right?"

Jeremie opened up another window and brought up his recording program. After XANA had returned, Jeremie had begun to take recordings of his monitor for the purposes of studying the program's AI and patterns. He reviewed the last minutes of footage and found nothing out of the ordinary. "Sorry, Yumi, I've got nothing," he replied.

Before Yumi could say anything, two more red hornets appeared on the horizon. "Tell me you see this on the radar," she pleaded.

The boy genius placed his focus back on the radar once more. Like before, he saw nothing unusual happening. Knowing that something was amiss, he opened a terminal window and got into the code of the radar program itself. With the furious tapping of the keys heard throughout the control center, he modified a bit of the code to give him a more accurate search. He restarted the program before finally seeing the enemies in question. "Looks like XANA went ahead and did some modifications on some of his monsters. Since Aelita's not done deactivating the tower yet, I could send you some help but it'll take some time," he added.

Yumi unfurled her fans and stood, ready for a fight. "Odd, stay here and protect the tower," she ordered. Without waiting for a response, she lunged forward and threw both of her fans at the creatures, hoping that at least one of the fans would connect and kill the new monsters. Unfortunately for her, both of the creatures dodged the fans and increased their speed. Before she could catch at least one of the fans that were returning to her, one of the red hornets had already plunged it's stinger into Yumi's stomach, exploding to ensure that her devirtualization would be complete.

Odd took aim at the last red hornet left behind. His arms moved back and forth wildly, trying to get a clear shot at the insect. With the enemy drawing closer, Odd decided to forgo precision aiming and went with a relentless assault instead. He fired a stream of arrows as the hornet weaved around each of them with ease. As Aelita exited the tower, completing the deactivation process, one of the arrows hit the hornet directly in the thorax, causing it to explode. The force of the explosion was strong enough to knock Odd back, slamming him head first into a rock wall, depleting him of his life points. The explosion also sent out flying debris and the creature's body parts, including the hornet's stinger, which cut Aelita's cheek before she devirtualized from Lyoko.

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**Author's Notes**

_And so begins Story #13, also known as Episode 5 of The Reset Arc. Once again I'm employing the posting format that I used in my last oneshot fic, Unattainable. Even though the reviews consisted mostly of the same people posting over and over again, the overall response was positive as was the number of people coming back to the story to read new chapters. I'm doing the same thing here to see if I can get the same results._

_-Slow posting: Call it writer's block or lack of time or what have you but this is, by far, the hardest story I've had to write yet. The story is brewing in my head but for some reason I can't seem to make it flow from my head into the digital paper. I'm determined to finish it since I still have story ideas floating in my head but I only hope that finally posting chapter 1 will kick my in the behind and force me to get my spark for writing back._

_Till next time._


	2. The Bad Win

"Well that sucked," Yumi said as the gang left the factory.

Odd looked at her quizzically. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "We deactivated the tower, we stopped the bad guy and we won. How does that suck?"

Yumi sighed. "Ulrich got stabbed in the head. I got a stomach piercing I didn't want. There's a new enemy that explodes and Jeremie had to modify his radar before he could see it. Despite our win, I'd like to think that qualifies as 'suck.'"

"Doesn't matter," Ulrich piped up. "A W is still a W."

Yumi rolled her eyes and shook her head. She knew that the end result was all that really mattered. However, she would have liked it if it was done in a cleaner manner. Rather than continue the debate, she decided to move on and change the subject. "So, Jeremie, any idea on what we should be doing next?" she asked.

Jeremie frowned as he entered into a state of deep thought. The group fell silent in order for him not to break his concentration and because they were also anxious to hear what the plan was going to be. After a few moments, Jeremie had an answer. "Nothing."

Everyone in the group was surprised by the answer, especially Aelita since she always thought of Jeremie as the type of person to have two or three plans going on in his head at the same time. "What do you mean by 'nothing?'" she inquired.

"Look what happened today," he explained. "The radar failed to pick up those red hornets until I went in and modified the code. When you guys sent out those nanobots a while back, they had returned with plenty of new information. The first time I looked at it, I thought that it was just useless code and ignored it. However, after what happened today, I realized that XANA did more than just tweak Lyoko. He's been modifying everything so much that it's made our current programs close to useless now."

"That's why we can't do anything?" Ulrich asked.

"Well, you guys can't do anything outside of reacting to a XANA attack," he answered. "I've got to spend some time implementing the new code that the nanobots found into all of our programs. The radar, the bestiary, everything. I can't promise that the process will be quick but I'll do the best I can."

Yumi grunted. "In the meantime, I say we go and try to find out exactly where William's scanning point is."

Ulrich turned to her an raised an eyebrow. "Talk about trying to find a needle in a haystack. That could be anywhere in this city. How do we know where to start looking?" he asked.

"I haven't thought about that yet," she admitted. "I just know that we've got to find out where he's virtualizing from sooner or later. If we're only going to react to XANA attacks, then we might as well use the rest of the time trying to figure out everything about William." The gang walked a few more blocks before stopping short of a house. "Well, this is my stop. I'll see you guys tomorrow," she said as she headed for the side of her house.

"You didn't go through the front of your house?" Ulrich asked.

Yumi shook her head as she stopped and turned around to address him. "My parents don't know I'm out either so sneaking in is the only option."

"What about you little brother?" he asked.

"Don't worry about him," she replied, grinning. "We made a deal. He stops trying to rat me out, I give him pointers on how to hook up with Milly." With that, she turned back around and began the climb up the side of her house.

Ulrich stood there as he watched her climb. He had seen her climb up cliffs and monsters taller than her house a million times on Lyoko. Yet seeing her climb in the real world gave him a sense of awe and wonder. Every step she took made him smile and wish that he was right there climbing alongside her. Before he could linger on those thoughts, he felt the sharp sting of a hand flying at high speed across the back of his head. He turned around to find Odd giving him strange looks.

"We have to get back too, you know, before Jim catches us," he reminded him.

The brunette rubbed the back of his head as he turned around to catch one last glimpse of the friend he admired from afar. As soon as he had seen her climb through her bedroom window, he turned around and caught up with the rest of his party.

Odd turned to his friend as he slowed down to walk beside him. "You know, your girlfriend..."

"She's not my girlfriend!" he was quick to remind him. "We're just very good friends."

Odd sighed. "Fine. Your 'friend' still seems to be obsessing over William lately. Does she still think it's her fault that William turned on us like that?"

Ulrich responded with a sigh of his own. "I keep telling her that it's not her fault. No matter how many times she tells me that she understands, deep down I think that a little bit of her still blames herself for all this."

"I hope she can get over it," the purple-blonde-haired boy replied.

"I hope so," he said as they all made their way to campus to prepare for a good night's sleep. "I really hope so."

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**Author's Notes**

_Fairly short chapter this time around. I'm using the chapter split as a way to shift scenes instead of using a line break to show a passage of time or change in scenery. It's a cleaner feel for me. This chapter also establishes a few things that will not only happen later in the fic but in the overall series as well. Much like the previous fics, I'm a big fan of continuity so don't be surprised to see plenty of ties in each fic._

_The next chapter is going to be longer than this, that's for sure. If anything, you'll have an understanding for why this fic has this title._


	3. Commitment

Ulrich opened his eyes and looked at his surroundings. The trees around him were tall with the tops going beyond the clouds above him. The land beneath his feet was green and broken into several large segments. The sky was orange while the sea reflected the color with a deeper shade to it. Ulrich sighed as he realized where he was.

"The forest sector," he said with disappointment. "I was hoping I'd be somewhere different." Realizing that this was where his dream was going to take place this night, he decided to try and make the most of it by taking a walk. His dreams were the only times he had ever seen Lyoko in a peaceful state. With no one else by his side and none of XANA's creatures there to bother him, Ulrich entered into a state of peaceful thought. He ran through everything he had experienced so far. He still maintained friendships he had made years ago and was grateful for that. Thanks to his sparring partner, he had shown significant improvement in his martial arts abilities. Even his grades, which were a low point for him in the past, had improved with the help of the tutoring he was receiving. All of this success had brought him happiness and a calm spirit. The relative calm, however, had turned into anxiety and excitement when he realized just who made this all possible.

Yumi Ishiyama was the one that brought about all of this change in him. Before she came along, he was a loner that was good in a few things but never took a deep interest in anything in particular. It wasn't the best life he could live but he was perfectly content living it. After she came along, things changed for the better. Now, the boy who was perfectly fine being alone wanted to share his life with someone else. What's more, he wanted that someone else to be her, the girl that broke him out of his shell. The problem, of course, was that it wasn't easy to just come out and tell he how he felt. While he struggled to do just that in the real world, the dream world made him forget about his inhibitions. He could tell her how he felt without fear of rejection or fear of other people getting to her first. Of course, since it was a dream, things would turn out positive for him and the dreams always ended happily. While he had had those dreams more often recently, tonight's dream wouldn't afford him that opportunity. Instead, he closed his eyes and concentrated on psyching himself out, trying to convince himself to get enough courage to finally say something to her in the real world. After several minutes of telling himself what to do, Ulrich opened his eyes and scanned the area round him.

"Tell me there's something I could do here besides sit and meditate," he said out loud. At that moment he heard the sound of someone landing behind him. He turned around and saw William on the ground down on one knee. Ulrich got up slowly just as William did the same.

"Care to face me?" William asked as he reached back to grab his blade, his other hand motioning for Ulrich to step forward.

The brunette grinned as he reached back and unsheathed both of his katanas. "Perfect timing," he said to himself as he twirled both swords simultaneously before rushing forward to meet his foe. William did the same and soon both opponents met at the middle of the battlefield, swords locked together before the force each was giving pushed them both away from each other. The two combatants each took in a few breaths before charging at each other once more. This time, however, Ulrich ducked once William swung his sword. This placed the black-haired foe at a disadvantage, the strength of his swing causing him to lose his balance as he hit nothing. Ulrich took the opportunity to plunge one of his katanas into his enemy. William dropped his sword and grasped the blade that was still embedded in his stomach. As he did, Ulrich stood up and used his other katana to stab him through the chest before kicking him away from his weapons.

William clutched both his stomach and his chest as he fell backwards and landed on his back. With his body slowly disintegrating into lines of code, he turned to Ulrich and asked, "Tell me, is there anything you fear in your life?"

Ulrich stepped forward and stopped at William's decomposing body. As he placed his weapons back in their sheaths, he leaned forward and looked William in the eye. "Nothing," he said softly, watching the final strand of code float away into the digital ether. He then smiled, glad that things had been going well for him so far.

"Liar!"

Ulrich quickly looked around hoping to find a body to go with a voice that seemed very familiar to him. Instead, he saw nothing around him but tall trees and shaded sunlight. Seeing that there was no one to the left or right of him, he turned around and came face to face with what appeared to be a mirror image of himself. He squinted his eyes to get a more focused image and saw that the doppleganger had done the same. Ulrich had closed his eyes briefly and opened them again. This time, the clone did not blink, opting instead to throw a punch squarely in Ulrich's face and knocking him back several feet. The young samurai's eyes became wide as he shook off the blow, genuinely surprised that the clone had hit him with such force.

"All leaders fear something," the clone stated as he brandished a katana similar to the one Ulrich had. "You're no different."

Ulrich pulled out his own sword and stood firm, ready to fight. "Prove it!" he shouted. "Tell me what I'm afraid of."

The clone grinned as he rushed towards Ulrich with his sword in the air. The blade swung down, meeting up with Ulrich's own weapon and causing sparks to fly as the two weapons made contact. "Commitment," the copy said. "You can't tell the one girl you've known for years that you love her."

Ulrich was caught off guard by the comment. He never thought that his sub-conscious would ever attack him on a personal level, especially in his dreams. He fumbled his words for a moment before firing back. "Yes I can!" he said, his argumentative skills regressing to that of a little child. He blinked his eyes and saw that his enemy had transformed from a clone of himself to someone that had become a big part of his life.

"Then prove it," the doppleganger Yumi challenged as she used her blade to push him away. "Tell me how you really feel."

The warrior stepped back and lowered his weapon a bit. The presence of his beloved in his mind startled him and caused him to panic. He knew that this wasn't really happening and he knew that the person in front of him was not really the girl he adored. Yet, even faced with a fake version of Yumi, Ulrich could do nothing but simply stand there and stare at her, failing to let a word come out of his mouth.

The facsimile grinned as she walked over to a still motionless Ulrich. With her weapon in hand, she lowered Ulrich's sword then leaned in and planted a kiss firmly on his lips. Ulrich's eyes grew wide in shock before he pulled away from her and jumped backwards, raising his sword again. "I'll admit," the clone said, "you're kinda cute when you get scared."

Ulrich let out a massive war cry as he lunged forward, sword held high above his head. As he swung the weapon down, the clone parried with her own sword and pulled a fan from behind her back. She swung forward with it, barely slicing open his neck. Regaining his footing, Ulrich grabbed his other katana and charged forward once more while the clone did the same after placing the fan behind her again. All three of the blades locked together, creating sparks as each of the sharp edges ground on each other. With both of them realizing that their strength was equal, they both pushed away from each other. As they did the Yumi clone reached back and threw her fan at him. Ulrich realized what she had done and threw one of his katanas forward, catching the fan and sending it away from the battlefield. Once she landed on the ground, the clone stepped forward and took a swing at Ulrich. This time, however, he dodged instead of blocked, causing her to stumble as she missed. He took his sword and knocked away her weapon from her hands. Once she recovered from her misstep, she turned around and came face to face with the tip of a sharp Japanese sword.

"Do it!" she taunted as she went down on her knees. "Finish me off!"

The young warrior simply stared at the enemy in front of him. "I... I can't."

"What if I make it easier for you?" she asked. Her face began to melt away followed by the rest of her body. Her hair did the same and her body soon followed. Right before Ulrich's eyes, the being that once looked like himself before taking on the physical makeup of Yumi transformed into an all too familiar, unwelcome sight.

"Can you do it now?" he asked, now becoming the physical manifestation of Ulrich's father.

Ulrich froze in both astonishment and fear. He had always hated his father and had wished numerous times that he would expire so that he could leave him alone in peace. Yet despite his hate, he could not force himself to push the blade closer to his opponent. He could only stand there and shake at the sight before him.

"Come on, finish me," the clone continued. "Be a man and destroy the one person who gave you so much grief in your young life."

The blade continued to quiver as Ulrich tried to get a grip on himself. Ulrich wanted to kill this impostor of his father. His real father had done nothing but bring him misery. All of the verbal abuse about his failure in school and in life had made him angry and bitter at the man who had helped raise him. As far as he was concerned, his father was the reason he had failed in life. His emotions, however, refused to let him commit the act. Despite the trauma, he still loved his father and wished that they would reconcile things between them. Killing a false version of him wouldn't help things any.

The elder Stern grinned at the hesitation his opponent was showing. He got up off his knees and brushed the sword away. Before Ulrich could manage to put up at least a light resistance, the clone grabbed him by the throat and lifted him high in the air before tossing him head-first against a rock. Before Ulrich could have a chance to recover, the clone walked over to the fallen warrior and stomped on his wrist before grinding away at it with his shoe.

"Commitment," he sneered as he bent over to face Ulrich, "is something you fear the most. In your head you tell yourself that you are brave enough to confess your love to the one you care for the most. Yet, time and again, you back away when the moment would be perfect." He stomped on his victim once more as he continued. "In your head you want your father gone from your life. You could have ended your torment right here. Instead, you stood there, as helpless as a little child, when you were given the perfect opportunity. You, Ulrich Stern, are fearful of committing your thoughts into action. When you toss aside your fears and finally do as you feel, you will become a true leader. Until then..." The clone of the father paused as he stood upright and kicked the teenager's head against the nearby rock. "Until then, you can simply stand back and watch your world crumble around you piece by piece." Licking his lips at the carnage he had caused, the clone stepped back a few paces before dissipating into a cloud of black smoke.

Ulrich crawled over to his sword and plunged it into the ground, using it as a crutch to help him stand up and recover. Before he could even begin to think about what had just happened, he heard the sound of earth cracking. He turned around and began to see the ground behind him break apart and fall into the digital sea below. Knowing that he would be erased forever if he ever touched the dangerous waters, Ulrich began to run. As he did, more of the ground behind him continued to crumble and fall. He tried as hard as he could to run faster but he could not activate his super sprint ability for some strange reason. He continued running as the edge of the earth began to creep up closer behind him. Just when he thought he could outrun the calamity, he felt the ground disintegrate underneath him. He tried to reach for the ground in front of him but to no avail. All he could do was open his eyes wide in shock as he plunged to his doom.

The teenage boy gasped as he shot out of his bed. His breathing was rapid as was his heart rate. His eyes looked around him as he realized that his environment had changed once more. He was now in a room that was completely dark save for the moonlight that shone through the solitary window. On one side of his bed was a wall where his martial arts posters had been hung. On the other side was Odd who was almost falling out of his own bed and Kiwi who was sleeping soundly in his bed that protruded out of a drawer. As he rubbed his face, Ulrich realized that he had awaken from his nightmare, his most disturbing one yet. Knowing that he was now safe, he lay back on his bed an tried to calm down so he could get some sleep before the night was through.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_And here's Chapter 3 of the story. This is the first of three dream sequences that all take place in the same night. The number might seem a bit low but when you see what sequences are covered, you'll know why. While it was my original intention to wait for the reveal that this was a dream until the end of the chapter, it was important to establish that this was a dream early on to prevent confusion to readers. It also explained why Ulrich felt the way he did, why the enemy suddenly had new powers and why Lyoko was different in comparison to previous times._

_As you read this, Chapter 4 is currently being written. I'll be sure to post it the minute it is finished._


	4. Blame

The sun shone over the campus of Kadic Academy. Birds chirped softly and a gentle breeze blew through the area, marking off a wonderful day to be outside and enjoying what nature had to offer. The beauty of the day was especially evident in the small grassy area of the school where a young couple sat on the grass under the shade of a large tree.

Yumi looked at her surroundings and smiled. To her classmates, she always put up a tough exterior. She knew how to take care of herself and made it perfectly clear to everyone else that there was no way she would be taken advantage of. Some looked at it as a sign of independence while others saw it as a sign of acting like a tomboy. Either way, she didn't really give any thought to what they said. Right now she let her feminine nature show to the one person she cared about the most. She grabbed the arms of her boyfriend and joined them with her own as they wrapped around her. With him close to her, she felt safe and secure. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest, still smiling as she leaned back.

"I love you, Ulrich," she declared with a satisfied grin on her face.

"I love you, too, Yumi."

Yumi's smile quickly faded as she heard those words. Instead of hearing Ulrich's voice, she heard another voice that was different yet all too familiar. She looked down on her arms as she moved them aside. As her limbs went up, she had expected to see Ulrich's bare arms underneath. Instead, she saw red sleeves that flowed from underneath a black shirt. The feeling of uneasiness began to stir in her body as she slowly leaned forward to move away from the person behind her. Her head pivoted backwards and her face showed off a look of horror as she saw that the boy she was leaning against was not Ulrich Stern but William Dunbar.

"You're not Ulrich!" she exclaimed as she jumped away from him and stood up.

William stood up and began to examine himself. "Thank goodness I'm not him," he said. "I kinda like being myself."

Yumi scowled. "What are you doing here?" she asked with an angry tone to her voice.

The boy simply shrugged. "You tell me. It's your dream."

"Well if this is my dream then you shouldn't be a part of it at all," she fired back.

William looked at himself again and sighed. "Since I don't seem to be disappearing anytime soon, I might as well play psychiatrist and tell you why you have me here. I think that you want me here because you feel guilty about what you made me go through ever since I came to Kadic."

The Japanese girl scoffed at the remark. "You're crazy!" she blurted out. "What would I possibly feel guilty about?"

William stuck out his fingers as he began listing out all of his grievances. "We could start with the whole heartbreak thing. Leading me on wasn't exactly the nicest thing any girl could do."

"First off, I never implied that I had any interest in you romantically," she stated. "You had put that there yourself."

"Maybe," he said, "but you didn't have to use me to get back at Ulrich. Any boy could get the wrong idea after being involved in a stunt like that."

Yumi was taken aback. He was correct in his interpretation of that event some time ago. The fact that he remembered it made her feel bad and that fact that he held it against her made her feel worse. Still, she wouldn't let that fact stop her from making her point. "Any boy could get that idea in their head but only you would let it control your life for so long. Your obsessive nature with girls got you in real bad trouble before Kadic. I thought you would have learned by now but I guess I was wrong."

"So I guess my obsessiveness got me into my predicament at Lyoko, is that it?" he challenged.

Yumi became confused. "What?" she asked.

"You know, me being obsessed with you got me into that whole Lyoko mess," he continued. "I liked you so I agreed to keep the digital world a secret from everyone else. I liked you so I agreed to go fight a supercomputer AI program. I liked you so I got caught and became a slave to that very same program. I liked you so it was all my fault that this happened to me. That is what you were trying to say, right?"

The Japanese girl shook her head in shock. "No, that's not..."

"So it wasn't my fault that I got stuck living in a world made of nothingness?" William asked.

"William, I..."

"So where does the blame go?" he continued asking. "Aelita? Odd? Jeremie? Maybe even Ulrich?"

"Please!" she pleaded with a louder tone of voice. "Please. You and I both know the answer so why are you doing this to me?"

William simply shook his head. "To remind you that you had some responsibility in making this all happen. That, maybe, if you had simply left me alone or just brushed me aside, none of this would have happened."

"Then why did you go back?" she asked. "After being trapped in that prison and forced to do things against your will, why did you go back to XANA?"

The boy smirked as he continued looking at her. "Revenge, Yumi. You know that."

Yumi shook her head. "I don't buy that," she replied. "Really, why did you do it?"

William stood there in silence as he placed his hands in his pockets. While his face pointed forward, his eyes were aimed at the sky in deep thought. For a few moments, nothing happened. William stood motionless while Yumi did the same, waiting patiently for the truth to come out. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, William broke the silence.

"Have you ever been forced to do something against your will? It is one of the more agonizing experiences a human being can ever have. Your freedom as a person is completely gone. All of your thoughts and actions are controlled by someone else. Anything you do is bad enough but when the act is truly evil you end up both hating your captor for making you do the act and yourself for performing it. You lose your personality and become nothing more than a puppet. As bad as that is, though, seeking redemption for everything you did and receiving none is much, much worse. Everything you did was beyond your control and the people around you know that. Yet time and time again, no matter how much you apologize, no mater how many times you show them that you are a different person now, no one accepts the new you. They always remember the wrong things you did and never the right things. It's almost as if you could never win once you fell into the trap."

Yumi looked down at her feet. "William, I didn't know."

William simply smiled. "Of course you didn't know," he said. "The way you kept ignoring me, you wouldn't have known."

"Wait a minute," she snapped back. "I couldn't have possibly ignored you. In fact, I kept trying to reach out and help you before you decided to turn to XANA."

"Looks like you didn't do a good job, then," he quipped.

Yumi looked at him again in anger. Throughout the course of the conversation, her emotions fluctuated from anger to sympathy back to anger once more. Seeing the expression on his face made her want to punch him in the jaw and hopefully knock a few teeth loose. Instead of giving in to her primal instinct, however, she stood there and clenched her fists as tightly as she could. "You still didn't answer the question," she reminded him. "Why did you decide to side with XANA?"

The boy looked at her in the eye as he stepped closer to her. "Because he can free me of this burden," he answered. "I'll be able to forget everything that's happened to me ever since I came to Kadic. All of the pain, the anguish, the sorrow. All I have to do is help him stop you and your friends. And there's nothing you can possibly do to stop me." He stood next to her and leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "Nothing."

The Lyoko warrior grunted as she pushed him away. She cocked back her fist and prepared to take a swing at him but decided to do nothing instead. With a grimace of anger on her face, she glared at an amused William.

"Go ahead, hit me," he taunted. "It's your dream, right? What's the worst that could happen?"

With a verbal invitation already sent out, Yumi pulled her fist back a bit further and swung it forward, waiting to feel the impact of her knuckles against his jaw. Instead, she felt nothing as she saw William's body transform into thick black smoke. The force of the punch caused her to lose her balance and step forward, falling to the ground. As she prepared to get up, she saw the black smoke surround her and start to rise from the ground. She tried to get back on her feet but it was too late. The smoke had formed around her, forcing her to lay on her back and preventing her from any movement whatsoever. With her movement restricted, William's head formed from some of the smoke around her.

"I always wanted to get this close to you," he sneered as he formed a finger that ran down her cheek. William transformed into black smoke once more as he enveloped her body in the substance. Before Yumi could scream, the smoke had reached her head, covering her until her whole face disappeared.

Yumi rose from her bed and gasped. Without much thought, she got up and opened her bedroom window. Though she had always kept her window closed due to her distaste of the cold, the chill in air this night felt good as she took in a deep breath to fill her lungs with it. This was the second time that she had felt violated by William. It felt far more invasive than the kiss and more frightening as well. Despite feeling fatigued, Yumi sat by her bedroom window and took in a few more breaths of cold air, hoping to wipe away any traces of a dream gone horribly wrong.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_And so ends the second dream sequence in the fic. The issue of blame and why William did what he did seems like something I constantly hammer into reader's minds during this whole story arc. It's not intentional but I am starting to notice it. I'll try to make this the last time I do such a thing._

_On that note, I'm surprised at how much I like making William both the victim and villain in this arc. It seems to give him more depth as a character and makes him a better enemy than XANA right now._

_The next chapter should be coming soon. I'm starting to feel that writing groove come back so hopefully I can start to write like mad and get this fic done._


	5. Little Sister

Aelita opened her eyes and saw the same thing she had seen only moments ago: darkness. Without an ounce of light present anywhere around her, she saw nothing but dark black space. Her other senses told her something different, however. Her sense of hearing, for example, had told her that she was not in a room but a wide expansive space. She could tell because any noises she made would fail to echo around her, meaning that she was not surrounded by walls of any kind. Her sense of taste told her that the air around her was stale, almost dry, letting her know that there had been no wind in the area for quite some time. She couldn't sense any other smells in the area, telling her that she was the only object there. She could tell that she was standing, though, because she couldn't feel anything else touching her. Curious to see if her senses were right, she had raised her left hand in front of her and balled it up into a fist. She had no idea what form she had taken but there was only one way to find out. With less than a second of thought, she squeezed her fist and sparked up a bright pink ball of energy.

Her eyes had told her that all of her other senses were correct in their assumptions. She looked down and saw that she was wearing her complete Lyoko attire. The pink and white jumpsuit. The boots. Even the translucent skirt. It was all there. However, as she extended her fist to illuminate the space, she saw nothing. The ball of energy had managed to shine a light on her body but the rest of the emitted light seemed to have been eaten up by the darkness. Feeling defeated, she opened up her fist, snuffing out the ball of energy she had created just a few minutes before. Just as she was about to sit down and spend the rest of her time in admiration of the black space, the area suddenly became bathed in bright white light. Aelita shielded her eyes and grit her teeth as she struggled to adjust to the sudden change in illumination. At that moment, she felt a cold rush of wind come from behind her.

"Hello, dear sister."

The voice sounded very familiar to Aelita, as if she had heard it somewhere before. It didn't take her long for her eyes to adjust to her surroundings and it took less time for her to determine just who was speaking to her. She placed both of her arms down as she replaced the wincing on her face with a scowl of contempt. "I told you before, XANA, don't ever call me your sister."

The rogue AI program sighed. "Aelita Schaeffer, why do you continue to deny your heritage? First it was the change in your last name and now you deny that I am your brother. What would mother and father think if they heard you now?"

"They are not your mother and father!" she spat back. With her eyes finally adjusted, she turned around to face her greatest enemy.

XANA stood, slightly leaning on a white walking stick that seemed to be made of ivory with the exception of the gold tip and handle. His feet were covered in white leather shoes while he wore a white suit, complete with white button down shirt and white tie. His hands were covered with white leather gloves. Both his skin and his hair were a pale white color, similar to that of his suit, while his eyes and lips shared the same shade of white. The outfit was topped with a white bowler hat that rested gently on his head. He began to laugh slightly at her remark. "I beg to differ," he said. "They were the ones that started the project. They were the ones that researched artificial intelligence before putting all of their efforts into the endeavor. They were the ones that wrote the last line of code before you were even a twinkle in their eyes. As far as I am concerned, Franz and Antea Schaeffer are my birth parents."

The pink haired girl growled as she raised her hand and created a sizable ball of energy from her hand. "Shut up!" she shouted as she hurled the projectile from her palm.

XANA raised two fingers and stopped the ball of energy from touching him. He lowered his fingers, causing the ball to descend to the ground, making it lose mass before it disappeared into nothingness. "Typical behavior of a younger sibling," he said as he shook his head. "When the elder proves himself to be right, the younger resorts to physical violence for revenge."

A ball of energy that had already begun to manifest itself in Aelita's hand was quickly snuffed out. She had wanted to throw it at XANA, hoping that this one would hit the target directly. Instead, she had killed it herself, realizing that going along with her original plan would make XANA's assumptions correct. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of being right, she folded her arms across her chest and looked at her 'older brother'. "So, what do you want?" she asked.

The program leaned a bit more on the walking stick while leaning his head further forward. "Whatever do you mean, Aelita? Are you assuming that I am incapable of simply visiting my sibling without any ulterior motives?"

Aelita folded her arms even tighter. "The last time you and I had met like this, I was locked up in a tower and held in suspended animation. Now, what do you want?"

"A truce," he stated.

She cocked an eyebrow in both interest and disbelief. "A truce?"

XANA nodded. "A truce," he repeated. "Ever since your friends discovered Lyoko, we have been engaged in constant battle. At first it was entertaining. The thought of a small group of adolescents trying to defeat me was intriguing. After some time, however, it became tiring. We are at a standstill right now and there seems to be no end in sight. It is in our best interests if we stop the fighting now."

Aelita continued staring at him in disbelief. "What's the catch?"

"Excuse me?" he inquired.

"I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't try and call a truce for no reason," she explained. "You must want something out of this. So what is it?"

"Your nanobots," he answered. "Or, rather, your boyfriend's nanobots."

Aelita's face conveyed a look of surprise. "How did you know about those?" she asked.

XANA laughed as he stood upright again. "It's not difficult to notice billions of tiny organisms occupying your world for a brief period of time. True, they had self-destructed before they could be captured for analysis but it wasn't hard to figure out what they were up to. It was a brilliant move for him to create machines for the sole purpose of mapping out Lyoko once more." He moved closer and began to circle Aelita. "All I want is the blueprints for making those nanobots. That's all. Once I have those, our little war will finally be put to an end."

"An end to our war?" she asked softly.

"Oh yes," he replied. "After all, my quarrel is not with you nor your friends. Imagine a world where you would all live carefree and happy lives without worrying about traveling to a foreign land to battle monsters, risking your lives for people that know not what you do for them. A life of normalcy. It is what everyone wants and it is yours to have." He stopped behind her and leaned in, his lips close to her ear. "I just need to find Father."

Aelita turned slightly and began to growl in low tones. "Go to hell!"

XANA smiled as he continued to circle the child. "It is rather amusing how you continue to protect that man," he said. "Wasn't he the one that caused your mother to get captured so many years ago? Was it not him that suggested you hide out in Lyoko for protection? Wasn't it his fault, and not mine, that you fell asleep in a tower?"

"It's all your fault that those things happened!" Aelita spat out. "I would give up my life if it meant you could never hurt my father again."

XANA continued smiling. "I expected as much from you," he said. "I would expect as much from your friends as well. But I wonder if the rest of the world would share your sentiments."

"Leave them out of this!" she fired back. "This is our fight. Those people have nothing to do with this."

"On the contrary, those people have everything to do with this," he explained. "The actions of both your group and Father have left me with no choice but to harm the general public. I harm them, you come to the rescue. I harm you, Father comes out of hiding. It is a terrible cycle and I really dislike harming the innocent. However, the road one must take to obtain their goal is not always the cleanest of paths to take."

"I told you, leave them out of this!" Aelita repeated.

"Then give me what I want!" he shouted, revealing an angry side he had not let out earlier. Noticing this, he paused to calm himself down before continuing. "All I need are the blueprints. Once I have them and do what I must, I shall never bother any of you again. Do we have a deal?"

Without another thought, Aelita gave her answer. "Never."

XANA shook his head. "You would rather I put the lives of billions of people at risk just so one formless being of energy could be saved?" he asked. "Innocent lives snuffed away in order to protect the very person who helped to create their executioner in the first place?"

"No one will become a martyr," she answered. "As long as my friends and I live and breathe, we will prevent you from hurting anyone living on Earth and on Lyoko."

XANA sighed. "So be it. Our little war will rage on until one of us achieves their goal." He began to walk away from Aelita but stopped after taking a few steps forward. He turned slightly to look back at her and said, "If you decide to change your mind, however, you know how to find me." With that, he continued walking forward, the light fading away from the room until darkness filled it once more.

Aelita opened her eyes once the first rays of sunlight peered through her window. Instead of the empty white room she was in earlier, she saw her dorm room complete with all of her books and furniture. She knew that she had only experienced a dream but she had felt that the conversation with XANA was very real. Feeling a bit uneasy at the experience, she placed her Mr. Puck doll on her desk, urned to face the wall and covered her face with her bedsheets, hoping to get a little more rest before the day would begin.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_Chapter 5 is now done, marking the end of the dream sequences. From here things should get pretty interesting as far as story is concerned. I've got a few tricks up my sleve so hopefully I can pull them off successfully._

_-Family: I really liked dealing with the relationship angle between XANA and Aelita. I've seen other stories do it before and I figured that I should try my hand at it as well. It was a ton of fun to write, especially when you consider how Aelita feels about the whole thing._


	6. Access Denied

The lunch bell rang throughout the campus of Kadic Academy. Without delay, the line to the cafeteria filled up quickly as the smell of roasted chicken and yams filled the air. Moments after the line had formed, Odd grabbed his tray full of food and sat at his usual table. Without looking at his friends that were already seated there, he began telling them a story.

"So I had this really weird dream last night," he began. "I dreamed that I was in New York for a hot dog eating contest. I ate over fifty hot dogs but I didn't win the contest. It turned out that I tied both last year's champion from America and the six-time winner from Japan. So after a little break, they decided to have a tie breaker round. Once that ended, I ate over one-hundred hot dogs, beating the both of them and winning the contest. What was weird was that my prize was a lifetime supply of hot dogs." As he prepared to take another bite out of his lunch, he finally decided to look up. His mouth hung open as he dropped his fork, astonished at what he saw before him. "What happened to you guys?" he asked.

Ulrich looked at his friend, his eyes halfway closed due to drowsiness. Yumi, meanwhile, had a pair of dark circles under her eyes. They were especially visible whenever she stretched out the skin and rubbed the sleep out of her eye. Finally, Aelita took a sip of water and twitched suddenly, groaning as she did.

"I understand you not seeing Aelita and Yumi, but Ulrich?" Jeremie asked in confusion. "I mean, he's your roommate."

Odd shrugged his shoulders. "He wasn't there when I woke up," he argued.

"You didn't notice him in class?" he asked as he was met with another shoulder shrug. Jeremie shook his head as he lifted his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your power of observation, or lack thereof, is stunning," he commented.

"Fine, whatever," he responded. "So what happened?"

Ulrich was the first one to speak. "I had a really bad dream last night," he said. "I was in Lyoko fighting myself then I was fighting my father. Then Lyoko fell apart as I fell to my doom."

Odd grimaced. He knew how much his friend hated both heights and his father. For those two reasons alone, he understood just how bad of a nightmare Ulrich had. "OK, Yumi, what happened to you?" he asked.

Yumi yawned before answering. "I had a dream where William told me why he sided with XANA." She looked over at the other table where the boy in question sat alone. He looked back at her and the two stayed that way for quite a bit of time before they broke the look and went back to their own affairs. "It ended with me suffocating," she concluded.

Aelita decided to speak before Odd would have the chance to ask her what had happened. "I had a really interesting conversation with XANA," she said. "He promised that the fighting between us would end if I gave him the blueprints to the nanobots."

"What happened after that?" Odd asked.

"Nothing," she replied. "I woke up early after that."

Odd scratched his chin before turning to Jeremie who, unlike the others, didn't look more fatigued than normal. "What about you, Einstein? What did you dream about last night?"

Jeremie thought about the dream he had last night and began to crack a smile. He loved every moment of it, especially how it ended. He quickly wiped the smile away from his face, however, when he came back to his senses and realized who was sitting down with him at the lunch table. That smile was replaced with embarrassed blushing as he scrambled to find an answer to the question. "Oh, um, nothing. I didn't dream last night."

The blond and purple-haired boy scoffed at the comment. "Whatever. Everyone dreams when they sleep. What kind of dream did you have that you had to smile about it?" he asked.

The boy genius quickly changed subjects. "So between the five of us, two of us had good dreams while the rest had some pretty bad ones."

"I thought you said you didn't dream last night," Odd interjected.

Jeremie continued to ignore his friend. "What's even more interesting is that all three of those bad dreams involved XANA in one way or another. Coincidence?"

"Doubtful," Yumi answered. "There's no way the three of us just happened to have XANA related nightmares in the same night."

Ulrich sighed. "So, it's safe to assume that XANA is behind all of this," he said. "The question is, why and how did he do it?"

Jeremie seemed to already have an answer for that question. "It's safe to say that XANA wants you fatigued when you battle his forces," he said. "That way you guys won't be much of a match for his monsters. If that's the case, how was he able to access your minds and cause your nightmares?"

The group sat silently for a moment. No one could think of a logical answer for this one. Suddenly, Odd thought of something. "They all got killed by the red hornets," he stated.

"Aelita didn't get killed by them," Yumi reminded him.

"But I did get hit by one of their stingers," Aelita stated.

Ulrich started to get an idea. "Do you think that XANA's red hornets somehow got us all infected?" he asked.

Jeremie scratched his chin a bit. "Could be," he answered. "There could be a million ways XANA got into Aelita's head but for you and Yumi, that makes the most sense."

"Do you think you can scan us to make sure?" Yumi asked.

Jeremie nodded. "All I need to do is..." His train of thought was interrupted by a series of beeps coming from his phone. After looking at the screen, he pulled out the laptop from his backpack and began running a program. "Just as I thought," he stated. "We have a tower activated in a brand new sector of Lyoko."

Aelita groaned. "At the most inconvenient time, of course."

The boy genius nodded. "I'll have to do a 'return to the past' to get us out of this mess. Until then, it's time to go to work." He placed the laptop back in his backpack and got up from the table. He exited the cafeteria and was soon followed by the rest of his friends. They all met up in the small campus park and descended into the sewers from there. After hopping on to their scooters and skateboards, they made it to their destination and ascended on to the base of the bridge leading to the factory. The group rode the elevator down to the first stop where Jeremie got off. "Since this is a new sector, I won't be able to give you any new details on the area until you virtualize there."

"Understood," Ulrich responded as the elevator doors close and the rest of the group traveled to the bottom floor. Once the doors opened again, all four warriors took their places in their respective scanners. "We're all ready, Jeremie," he said.

Jeremie cracked his knuckles and began typing out the commands from his terminal. "Scanner Ulrich. Scanner Aelita. Scanner Yumi. Scanner Odd." As a strong gust of wind and a bright white light enveloped the inhabitants of each container, Jeremie tyed out a few more commands to complete the process. "Virtualization."

Odd materialized a few feet in the air before dropping down and landing softly on his feet. He was followed moments later by Aelita who had undergone the same process. Upon landing, they both turned around, expecting Ulrich and Yumi to follow close behind them. When some time had passed and they were nowhere to be seem, Odd cupped his ear and contacted Jeremie. "What happened to Yumi and Ulrich?" he asked him.

Jeremie shot a perplexed look at his monitor. "Aren't they with you?" he asked.

"No sign of them here," Aelita chimed in.

The blonde-haired child opened up his map of Lyoko and saw that there were only two dots on screen. Those dots belonged to Aelita and Odd. "Funny, I don't see them on the map." As he was about to open up another program, he noticed two warning signs appearing on the scanning program. He looked closer and saw that the signs were appearing over Ulrich's scanning pod as well as Yumi's. "Don't tell me I lost them," he muttered to himself as he typed in the command to open all of the scanner doors. Aelita's door opened first followed by Odd's. Both of them revealed nothing. As Ulrich's and Yumi's scanner doors opened, both of them stepped out of the pods and gave each other perplexed looks.

"What just happened?" Yumi asked.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_Chapter 6 is done. There's really not much to say here, unfortunately. It's a pretty straightforward chapter outlining what happened before and a new threat XANA put up. That last paragraph does raise some interesting things, though._

_The next chapter will reveal some new things. Should be a fun read whenever I get around to finishing it._


	7. Bayou

Ulrich shrugged his shoulders. "Jeremie, what's going on?" he asked.

Jeremie punched a few keys on his terminal. "Must have been a minor glitch," he replied. "Step back in and try again." The duo stepped back in their respective pods and went through the scanning process again. As the ring of light passed through their bodies, Jeremie looked at the progress meter to see if he could spot an error occurring. Right as the process neared completion, warning signs appeared, shutting down the scanning program to prevent any more errors from happening. As the program shut down and the scanning pod doors opened, Jeremie went searching for the error log files.

"Why can't we get to Lyoko?" Yumi inquired.

Jeremie continued his search for the log files. "I'm not sure," he said. "For some reason the scanner doesn't recognize you two. I put in some security software weeks ago to prevent anyone but us from using the scanners. Unfortunately it might have backfired. I'm running the log files through a debugger now to see if it can find out what went wrong."

"What do we do until then?" Ulrich asked.

"Nothing right now," he answered. "Sorry, but you guys just have to sit tight on this one." Jeremie tapped a few keys and switched frequencies from the scanning room to Lyoko. "Can you guys hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Aelita answered.

"I can't seem to get Ulrich and Yumi scanned into Lyoko," he explained. "You two are going to have to shut down the tower by yourselves. According to my radar, I'm not seeing any activity in the area. However, the tower lies a good distance northeast of your location."

Odd decided to respond. "That's great, Jeremie, but we might have one slight problem."

"What's that?" he asked.

Aelita and Odd looked at their surroundings. The sunlight in the area was a dark amber color, as if it was permanently set to dusk. Dark gray trees littered the area just like in the forest sector but their large roots were exposed along with their trunks. Small patches of land were covered in tall grasses and moss. A thin layer of fog covered the area but the surroundings were still visible even in far distances. Unlike other sectors, however, the digital sea did not exist miles below the land structures. Instead, the binary waters were only a few feet below any land masses. "We're in a swamp," Odd replied.

Jeremie couldn't believe his ears. "A what?"

"A swamp," he repeated. "You know, lots of land with lots more water around you. It's like what would happen if the forest sector got flooded."

"I know what it is," he said with a sigh. "Do you think you guys could make it to the tower?"

"Don't worry about us, Jeremie," Aelita assured him. "The water looks easy to avoid so it should be alright."

"Understood," he relayed. "Good luck."

Odd placed his hand away from his ear and started to move alongside Aelita. "You think we'll be OK here? I mean, there's lots of water here and one dip in it could wipe us out for good."

Aelita moved toward the direction of the tower. "To be honest, I'm not sure," she confessed. "I just don't want Jeremie worrying about us when he should be worrying about why Yumi and Ulrich can't get scanned into Lyoko." The duo ran at a quick pace through the swamplands. While the tall grasses did slow down their movements a bit, it also served as an indicator as to where the patches of land and water began. The fog also served this same purpose, becoming thicker when it was over land and disappearing when it was over the water. A symphony of cricket calls, mosquito buzzes and frog croaks sounded through the air as the warriors moved closer to the location of the tower.

"You know what would be great after this?" Odd asked.

"A hot relaxing shower?" Aelita guessed.

Odd shook his head. "A large bowl of gumbo."

The pink-haired girl stopped in her tracks and turned to face her companion. "Are you seriously getting hungry at a time like this?" she asked in disbelief.

He shrugged as she rolled her eyes and continued moving forward. "I can't help it. It's the environment," he explained. "The swamp reminds me of a New Orleans bayou. New Orleans reminds me of Cajun food. Crawfish. Po' boy sandwiches. Jambalaya. Just talking about it makes me want to go to New Orleans right now."

Aelita giggled. "Ulrich's right, you are a walking stomach," she stated. Suddenly, she held out her arm and stopped dead in her tracks.

"What's wrong?" Odd asked.

"We found the tower," she answered.

"Cool!" Odd exclaimed. "So what are we waiting for?"

The young woman had said nothing. She simply pointed to the tower that was less than a thousand yards away and partially submerged in water. She also pointed to the area in front of them. Between their spot and the tower itself, there was nothing but water and a very thin layer of fog. Both of them looked around and failed to see any more signs of land. Aelita cupped her ear and tried to get in contact with the rest of the team. "Jeremie, I..."

"See nothing but water," he finished for her. "Unfortunately, I don't see any spots of land near you or another way to get to the tower."

"I might be able to fly over there using my energy wings," she said, "but I'm not sure if I could carry Odd along with me. His weight could drag me down."

"Just because I eat a lot does not mean I'm heavy!" he snapped back.

"Well, it doesn't make you any lighter," she quipped. "Do have any ideas on how we can both get to the tower?"

Odd placed his thumb on his chin and tapped his cheek with his index finger, trying to think of a plan. Within a few seconds he was his by a burst of inspiration. "I got one," he said before cupping his own ear. "Hey, Jeremie, can you send the overboard my way? I'm going to try something here."

Jeremie tapped on the keyboard and brought up the database of vehicles he had designed for the team over the past few years. "One overboard coming up." After highlighting the vehicle in question, he pressed a few more keys and sent the requested item into the virtual world.

The hovering skateboard appeared in front of Odd within a few minutes. Once the final texture was in place, Odd grabbed the board and went to the shore of the little island he and Aelita were both standing on. He placed the overboard on the shore and pushed it forward with his foot. Though the vehicle was designed to float over land, Odd had a theory that the board could float over the digital water as well. It turned out that his theory was correct; the overboard had still stayed afloat when it was halfway over the water. It remained floating even after he had pushed it all the way to where the whole thing was over water. Wanting to push his luck even further, Odd jumped on the board, fearing that the added weight would cause it to finally sink. Much to his satisfaction, the overboard still stayed floating. He then turned to Aelita who was still standing at the shore. "Shall we go?" he asked.

Aelita nodded. She waved her hand over a device on her wrist, causing her to sprout wings of energy on her back. She took a few steps back before running forward and leaping at the last second , going airborne in the process. Odd followed suit on his overboard and soon the duo were off to the tower. The way to the tower became much clearer once they left the shore. The fog had disappeared at that point and there were no trees directly in front of them, giving them a clear path toward their objective.

"Einstein, do you see anyone out there wanting to welcome us to the party?" he asked. "I'm not in the mood for surprises right now."

"I've got no signs of..." Jeremie stopped himself when something new popped up on his radar. "The radar just picked up something. One enemy about less than two-hundred yards from where you are right now."

The duo looked ahead but saw nothing. "What kind of enemy is it?" Aelita asked. "Odd and I don't see anything out there."

Jeremie clicked on the red dot on the radar and typed out a command to get better analysis on the enemy. "The computer is doing a deep scan on the enemy right now but it'll take a while. Whatever it is, its one hundred and fifty yards away from you now."

Odd looked up thinking that the enemy could be flying at a higher altitude than they were. "I still don't see anything."

"One hundred yards and closing," he relayed. "You should definitely see it by now. According to the radar, it's pretty big."

Aelita looked to her sides, looking past every tree and hoping to catch a glimpse of something. "I've got nothing here."

"Fifty yards!"

The duo looked at each other, still wondering where the monster could be. They had already looked forward, backward, to their sides and above them. It suddenly dawned on them that there was one direction they completely overlooked. Odd began looking at his feet. "You don't suppose..."

The most jovial member of the group was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a creature emerging from the digital waters. The dark green creature had a long slender body that was shiny and smooth. It had no limbs save for four short stubby legs, two on each side of the body. The head consisted mostly of an elongated snout without any eyes. This new creature leaped up from the waters and opened it's mouth right underneath Odd's overboard. The warrior instinctively leaped up and watched as the creature grabbed the overboard and destroyed it with it's mouth before diving back into the water.

"Odd!" Aelita shouted. She quickly flew over to her friend and grabbed him before he could land in the water. With the added weight threatening to drag them to their doom, Aelita grunted and found the strength to lift herself higher and take Odd away from danger in the process. Unfortunately, while doing al of this, she had drifted into the trees and crashed hard into one of them. The sudden disruption in her flight pattern had caused her wings to disappear, sending both her and Odd into the waters below.

Jeremie stood up from his chair when he realized what had happened. With Yumi and Ulrich at his side, he adjusted his headset and brought the microphone closer to his lips. "Odd? Aelita? Are you guys there?"

There was no response.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_Chapter 7 is now done and with a bit of a cliffhanger to boot. Cliffhangers always make for pretty good chapter breaks so that's why I decided that this would be a good place to do one. It also means that there are just two more chapters to go before this story is wrapped up and I move on to the next fic in the series._

_-Swamp: It would suck if a major reorganization of Lyoko didn't include new sectors to play in. With the five major sectors and the sea already explored in the main series, it was time to start using familiar yet new territories for the world. The swamp presents dangers of their own since the water is closer to the land and the other elements only threaten their safety here. I can assure you that this won't be the last time the swamp sector gets explored._

_-Sunken Towers: Why not? No one said that all towers stay on land and must be of a certain height._

_-The Creature: It gets a name in the next chapter. Till then, I made sense to take an animal we are familiar with and modify it for Lyoko. This is especially true for this sector. It helps the reader get a better idea of what the creature would look like. This way, any actions made by the creature all make sense._

_Chapter 8 is coming soon. At least one question will be answered by then._


	8. Krokodil

"Aelita? Odd? Can you hear me?" Jeremie called out. Silence was the only thing that greeted him.

"Do you think that...?" Yumi asked before stopping herself short. She didn't want to think grim thoughts but the situation before them wasn't looking too good.

The boy genius shook his head, not wanting to believe that the unthinkable would happen. "Aelita? Odd? Please respond!" he called out, his voice starting to sound more and more desperate.

Ulrich tried to be the voice of reason, despite his own disbelief at what just occurred. "Jeremie, they're not responding."

Before Jeremie could begin arguing with him about having hope, the speakers in the factory began to crackle. He turned his attention again to the monitor and his headset microphone. "Can any of you guys hear me?"

The cracking of the speakers stopped as the sound of Aelita's voice came through. "We're here, Jeremie."

Everyone in the factory breathed a sigh of relief. "What happened to you guys?" Jeremie asked.

The pink-haired girl was standing in the middle of the swamp. The waters were deep enough that she could stand at the bed of the swamp and have everything below her shoulders covered in liquid. "I crashed and fell into the water. Oddly enough, we're not dead. It's almost like the water in this sector is non-lethal. Speaking of Odd..."

Odd chose that moment to emerge from the water, his hair covering the sides of his face for the first time since he arrived at Kadic. "I'm alright," he gasped, "but I can't see anything in that murky water. Jeremie, what's up with that thing that attacked us?"

He changed his focus to the deep scan the computer was performing earlier. "That thing is called a Krokodil. It's got extremely strong jaws, it's fast in the water and it has heightened senses due to the lack of eyes," he responded. "Worst of all, its weak spot is in his throat."

"Its what?!"

"Its throat," he replied. "And it looks like it's coming back for you guys."

"How far is it?" Aelita asked.

"Two hundred yards and closing in faster than before," Jeremie answered.

Odd looked at Aelita. "Time to move, princess," he said. "Let's split up and start climbing on the trees. It'll have a hard time getting us from there."

Ms. Schaefer nodded in agreement as the both of them headed for opposite sides of the swamp. She looked towards the direction they had previously come from and noticed ripples in the water, letting her know just where the Krokodil was. "It's getting closer!" she shouted.

Della Robbia was already latched on to a tree, using his claws to keep himself attached. "Just climb," he replied. "I'll try to distract it when it gets closer."

Aelita headed for the tree in front of her. As soon as she was able to maintain a foothold on the exposed roots, she turned once again to see where the Krokodil was. She was not surprised to see the creature was now much closer than before. What did surprise her, however, was that it was not headed for her but for Odd instead. "It's coming for you, Odd," she said.

He saw the ripples in the water as soon as Aelita had alerted him about the danger. He let his left hand go before thrusting it deeper into the tree trunk. Now firmly secured, Odd let go of his right hand and began to take aim at the ripples coming closer to him. The creature sprang up from the water with his jaws wide open. Odd fired several shots, hoping at least one of them would make it to the target. However, as soon as the first shot fired, the Krokodil snapped it's mouth shut, clamping down on one of the laser arrows and letting the rest hit it's snout before diving back into the water. "Now it's headed your way, Aelita."

Aelita dug her feet deeper into the tree roots as she prepared for the attack. Her left hand leaned on the tree trunk while her right hand began charging up an energy ball. She began tracking the creature, watching as the ripples of the water came closer to her location. The creature had jumped up, causing her to throw her energy ball. However, just like the encounter with Odd, the Krokodil clamped it's jaws down on the energy ball before diving back into the water. "It's not working," she relayed to her partner. "I can't get a clear shot at his weak spot."

The purple clad warrior grit his teeth at the news. "We'll just have to do this the easy way then," he replied as he began jumping from tree to tree, using his claws to cling on each trunk.

"Easy for you, maybe. At least you have claws." She shook her head as she began jumping from tree root to tree root. "Can you make it deeper into the forest from where you are?" she asked.

Odd looked into the woods in front of him. "It looks too dense for me to move well in there. Besides, it's also dark and, knowing XANA, I don't trust that. There could be a swamp with no bottom if we go further in."

"Agreed," she said as she looked at the forest beside her ans saw the same thing. After each successful jump towards the tower, the duo each took a quick glance at the water in hopes of seeing where the Krokodil was. While they saw no ripples, they knew that the creature was still lurking there, waiting for the right time to strike. Suddenly, after a few trees had already been traversed, Aelita saw a faint ripple appear in the middle of the waters. "Looks like its back."

Odd stopped moving and turned to face her. "Where is it at?" he asked.

"In the middle of the water," she answered. She looked again and noticed that the ripples were suddenly changing direction and moving towards her. "Scratch that. Its coming for me."

Odd pulled one claw away from the tree and took aim at the water, the ripples becoming more pronounced now. Hoping to distract the creature, he fired off a few laser arrows at the ripples. He was expecting the Krokodil to go after the arrows or go towards him, leaving Aelita some breathing room in which she could keep going towards the tower without any interference. Unfortunately for her, the creature didn't fall for it and continued it's path towards the pink haired hero. "Sorry, I can't seem to shake it off of you."

Aelita realized that she had to rely on her own cunning if she wanted to avoid being devirtualized by XANA's new creation. She stood her ground and watched the waters, waiting for the perfect moment. Once the creature surfaced and lunged toward her, she jumped towards another tree, landed with a thud and turned back, watching the Krokodil snap it's jaws at the air instead of at her. Realizing her success, she continued on towards the tower, observing the waters with each step, waiting for the enemy to surface again. Moments later, after traversing through a few more trees, movement on the water's surface happened again. Like before, Aelita waited for the creature to strike before making her move. This time, however, the Krokodil leaped higher and faster, making Aelita lose her concentration, causing her to duck instead of jump. The slender creature leaped over her and took a bite out of the tree instead. With a large portion of the trunk missing, the tree fell, knocking the pink-haired girl into the water.

"Aelita!" Odd shouted as he saw the aftermath of the attack. He quickly scampered over to the fallen log, keeping his eyes open for any activity in the water. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw her emerge from the water a little shaken but fine overall. The relief quickly turned to fear as he noticed that the Krokodil had begun to surface once more and was headed straight for Aelita. Without any further thought to it, Odd ran across the fallen tree log and jumped towards the creature just as he was beginning to open his mouth. When Aelita began to realize just what was about to happen, she saw Odd land on the Krokodil's snout, using his arms to hold the jaw together and his weight to keep it closed for as long as possible. "Run!" he screamed. "I don't know how long I can hold him for."

She nodded as she ran through the water and headed for the tower. As she did, she could hear the thrashing of the Krokodil and Odd grunting, trying his best to hold the creature down for as long as possible. Aelita kept progressing forward, trying to ignore the ruckus happening behind her. Despite common sense telling her to go to the tower and not look back, she sopped moving and turned around to see Odd getting bashed against the fallen log numerous times before collapsing against it, his arm draped over a branch sticking out of the tree, preventing him from falling completely into the water. The creature then dove back into the water and headed straight for Aelita. Seeing how much Odd had sacrificed to help her get away, she decided to end the battle once and for all. Instead of running, she stood her ground and clenched her fists, ready to fight.

"Come on!" she shouted as she began forming a ball of energy in her right fist. Aelita kept her eyes on the water, watching as the ripples moved towards her. The ball of pink energy grew in intensity as the creature swam closer and closer at a much faster pace than before. As the Krokodil began it's lunge from the water, Aelita cocked her arm back and rushed forward. The Krokodil rose from the swamp, jaws open, ready to clamp down on it's target. Aelita moved to the left and extended her right arm forward inside the creature's mouth. The jaws began to close as her arm continued moving forward. Before the Krokodil could completely close it's mouth and eat away at her appendage, the ball of energy that stayed on Aelita's fist had found it's destination. Upon touching the eye in the throat, the energy ball disappeared along with the Krokodil. As Aelita turned to see the digital bits of the creature disappear into the air, she looked at her arm and flexed her fingers to make sure that she was still intact after the risky maneuver. With everything in the right place, she walked over to her comrade.

"You should have gone forward," Odd said weakly as he continued to lean on the fallen tree.

Aelita shook her head. "I couldn't just leave you behind."

"Even though I'd be back in the factory?" he asked, knowing that unless he dove into the digital sea, there would be no way he would expire if the Krokodil executed the final blow.

She laughed. "Momentary lapse of judgement?" she said meekly.

Odd laughed alongside her. "Just promise me you'll never do something that risky again."

"I promise I won't do anything risky today," she replied as she turned her attention towards the towers ahead of her.

"Well now that the coast seems to be clear, you should probably go deactivate that tower now," Odd said as he moved away from the tree and began to stand on his own two feet.

"You coming along?" she asked.

"Sure," he answered. "I got nothing else better to do now."

Aelita nodded as she ran towards the tower with Odd walking slowly behind her. As she began to enter the partially submerged tower, she was prepared to fall to the floor of the tower's lower level. Instead of falling, however, she found herself at the upper floor of the tower where the activation controls were located. She also found out that there was someone else inside the tower.

"What are you doing here?" she asked with surprise and contempt in her voice.

A man clad in a skin-tight black outfit stood at the controls, looking intently at the light blue hue of the tower walls. "Just observing," he said. "And from the looks of it all, it seems like XANA's little experiment worked out after all."

Aelita seemed perplexed as the voice she heard confirmed exactly who was standing in the tower with her. "What are you talking about, William?"

William continued facing forward. "Come on, you're a smart girl. Haven't you figured it out by now?" The question was met with silence, forcing him to turn around and face her. He shook his head upon seeing the confused look on her face. "Hornets, Aelita. The red ones. They prevented your friends from coming over to this world. XANA placed his bets on them stopping your friends and it looks like he won that bet." He waited for a rebuttal or witty reply but was met with none. With nothing left to say on the matter, he stepped away from the control panel. "Don't you have a tower to deactivate?" he asked.

"Aren't you going to try and stop me?" she asked with a scowl on her face.

The dark-haired boy shook his head. "Not on my agenda today. I'm here on an observation mission and that's it."

Aelita began walking forward towards the control panel. Her gaze was fixed on her enemy, waiting for him to stab her in the back. When nothing had occurred, she placed her attention on the control panel. With a hand scan and a password entry, the tower had been deactivated and her mission was over.

"Excellent work, Aelita," William praised. "Too bad Odd has to be XANA's new test subject."

The pink-haired girl prepared a ball of energy in her fist and cocked her arm back, aiming to strike at William. "What have you done to him?" she demanded.

"Nothing," he replied. "But if you hesitate, Odd may befall the same fate as the others."

Without any hesitation, Aelita ran towards the tower exit. Upon exiting, she saw Odd who was still walking towards her. With the energy ball still formed in her hand, she threw the projectile forward. Odd had a look of surprise on his face and little to no time to react as the ball of pink energy hit him squarely in the chest. The blow had caused him to devirtualize from the chest outwards. His final bits disappeared just as a red hornet fell from the sky, stinger first. Without a target to break it's fall, the red hornet plunged into the water only to surface moments later, lifeless as it began to disintegrate into ones and zeroes.

William emerged from the tower, his applause accompanying the cacophony of sounds already present in the swamplands. "Well done, Aelita," he congratulated. "Your quick thinking and haste saved Odd... for now."

Aelita tuned to face William once more. "What? You're not angry? No curses to throw at me? No sacrifices to the digital sea?"

The villain grinned. "Like I said, this is an observation mission for me. If I was going to do anything you just said, your brother would have told me to do so." With that, he transformed into a cloud of black smoke and disseapted into the dark forest of the swamp.

Aelita grunted as he disappeared into the surroundings. With the enemy completely gone from the swamp, Aelita cupped her ear and tried to make contact with the factory. "Did Odd make it back?" she asked, worried that her energy blast would not safely send her friend back to the real world.

"He's in!" Jeremie exclaimed as he watched the monitors and saw Odd stumble out of the scanning pod completely unaware of how close he was to getting a piercing on the top of his head. Once he confirmed that he was safe, Jeremie punched in the key sequence used to initiate a time bubble that would somehow rewind the damage caused by XANA's actions. "Once we 'return to the past', we need to meet up here ASAP," he instructed. "If we're lucky, we can reverse the damage those hornets caused." The duo of Ulrich and Yumi nodded as the bubble of white light began to envelop them, the factory and the world at large.


	9. Preliminary Diagnosis

The elevator doors of the factory opened as both Yumi and Ulrich stepped out into the control center to meet with the rest of the group. Both of them had a look of disappointment that was quickly shared by everyone else in the room. "Same as before," Ulrich said. "We failed to scan into Lyoko."

Jeremie frowned. "I thought as much, though I was hoping that a 'return to the past' would somehow fix things."

"So what exactly went wrong?" Yumi asked.

"You and Ulrich had your digital DNA scrambled," Jeremie answered as the rest of the group looked confused. "Let me explain. A while back I had installed a new security measure that would prevent anyone else but us from using the scanners. I recorded all of our digital DNA whenever we got scanned and locked it. By doing this, the scanner would reject anyone from going to Lyoko if they didn't provide an exact match to any one of us, including any polymorphs XANA would come up with. Somehow I think XANA might have infected you guys via the red hornets with a virus that modified your code, thus preventing you from getting to Lyoko in your virtual forms."

Odd placed his hands on the back of his head. "So you go ahead and unlock the record, make a new one out of this current DNA and lock it again," he surmised. "Sounds simple enough."

Jeremie shook his head. "If only it was that simple," he answered. "For some reason, I can't seem to get a lock on their DNA signature. Every time I do a scan, it changes up on me."

Aelita knew what this meant. However, she had to ask the question just to make sure. "Does this mean that..."

The smartest man in the room nodded his head, stopping her from proceeding further with the question. "Ulrich and Yumi can never access Lyoko again."

"Never?" the duo asked in genuine shock.

Jeremie thought about what he had just said. "Sorry, let me rephrase that," he replied. "Unless I can somehow lock your digital DNA again or cure you from XANA's virus, the chances of you guys stepping into a scanner and getting transported into Lyoko are close to zero."

Yumi and Ulrich looked at each other and sighed. In an instant, their adventures fighting evil in the digital world had been taken away and there was nothing either of them could do to change that fact. "What happens now?" Yumi asked.

"Just like today, Aelita and Odd will have to be the ones to go into Lyoko and take care of any problems XANA cooks up for us," Jeremie answered.

"After today, I think the princess and I could handle it," Odd added.

"Meanwhile, since you guys have a big problem, there's only one thing I have to do right now," Jeremie stated as he adjusted his glasses.

Ulrich folded his arms and asked, "What's that?"

"Fix it."

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_Story #13 is done. For the first time since I started writing, I got into a real bout of writer's block. It wasn't that I didn't have time to write or have material to write (even with beta reading, game reviews & my personal computer project I still try to make time to write out one sentence). The problem here was that my thoughts refused to get put on paper. The fact that I let close to two months go by without a fic is pretty bad. I just have to play mad catch-up this time around._

_-The Krokodil: As much as I wanted to stick with creatures that appeared only in the series and in the games, it would get tiresome for both writer and reader if the crew kept facing the same enemies over and over again. I noticed that while some of the enemies already featured were original creations, others were amplified versions of animals and insects from the real world. Since I introduced the swamp, it was only fitting that the featured enemy of the fic would be an animal that resides in a swamp. The eye on the throat was done simply to make the creature more exciting to fight against._

_The next fic will be continuing the series. I'm completely tapped out for one-shots at the moment. _

_Till next time._


End file.
